Yard Team Makes Bid On Ships

NEWPORT NEWS — The Navy plans to decide in less than three months between two teams of shipbuilders that submitted bids Friday to build and maintain the next generation of amphibious assault ships.

The team that wins - either the Avondale Industries alliance or an Ingalls Shipbuilding-led group that includes Newport News Shipbuilding - will walk away with a 12-ship contract worth at least $6 billion.

Work on the first vessel, known as LPD-17, is scheduled to begin before the end of the year.

The project marks a new era in Navy contracting.

Rather than compete in an open field, yards opted to align themselves in teams to bid for the work. Rather than awarding separate contracts for the vessels, the Navy has made the project a one-shot deal. And rather than award the project to the lowest bidder, the Navy will look for what it calls the "best value situation."

That includes considering everything from price to how the teams plan to build and maintain the ships, said Newport News Shipbuilding spokeswoman Jerri Fuller Dickseski.

The Ingalls team proposes building the rear of the ship in Newport News and floating the 11,000-ton section to Ingalls' Mississippi yard, where it will be joined with the front section of the ship.

The Avondale team plans to build the first ships entirely at its Louisiana yard. Later ships would be built by Avondale and Bath Iron Works, and both yards would have their own separate production lines.

Though it is unusual, the project isn't the first the local yard and Ingalls have bid on together.

Three years ago the two yards jointly submitted two bids to build a total of 12 roll-on, roll-off fast Sealift ships for the Navy. In that proposal, like the LPD-17 proposal, the yards planned to build sections of the ships at each yard and assemble them in Mississippi.

The yards lost out on both contracts when the Navy awarded them to National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. and Avondale in 1993.

THE TEAMS

Two teams submitted their bids Friday to build the Navy's next generation of amphibious ships, now known as the LPD-17. The teams' members are: